First group of Peace Corps volunteers reunite at Rutgers to celebrate 50 years since training

NEW BRUNSWICK — Nearly 50 years ago, Ned Chalker arrived at Rutgers University in New Brunswick filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

The recent college graduate and nearly 80 other young men from around the country had volunteered for something new, called the Peace Corps. A summer of training on the Rutgers campus was supposed to prepare the new recruits for their two-year assignment to bring American know-how and goodwill to the rest of the world.

"We all assembled there not knowing a thing about anything," said Ned Chalker, 72. "We were just a bunch of young guys. They taught us all about languages. They taught us all about Colombia."

Several dozen of those first Peace Corps recruits returned to New Brunswick today for a two-day event marking the 50th anniversary of the organization and Rutgers’ role in its founding. The university unveiled a plaque at Hegeman Hall, the dormitory on George Street where the first Peace Corps recruits lived during their training in the summer of 1961.

Most of the first recruits — who were known as Colombia I — went on to serve in villages in remote sections of the South American country. They built schools, taught English and organized community groups.

"Somehow, this group of people I served with in Colombia has stayed close for 50 years," said Chalker, now a retired federal education department employee living in Washington, D.C. "The closeness was the result of our intense training at Rutgers."

The idea for the Peace Corps began in 1960, when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy used a speech at the University of Michigan to ask students if they would be willing to work for peace by volunteering in developing countries. After he became president, Kennedy signed an executive order creating the Peace Corps and federal officials began sifting through thousands of applications.

Four universities, including Rutgers, were selected as the training sites for the first recruits. In New Brunswick, the volunteers learned Spanish, studied the history of Colombia and endured daily fitness training.

Sargent Shriver, Kennedy’s brother-in-law, was appointed the Peace Corps’ first director. Shriver traveled to New Brunswick and told the volunteers he wanted to meet them in person because, so far, he had known them only by their applications.

Jerry McCrea/The Star LedgerOriginal members of the Peace Corps Colombia I training group from 1961 gather for a photo.

"He said, ‘I came to see what you looked like,’" recalled Dennis Grubb, who was 20 years old at the time and one of the youngest volunteers.

After their training in New Jersey, the recruits traveled to Washington, D.C., where they met Kennedy. The president said he wasn’t sure how the Peace Corps experiment would work out, but he reminded the men they would be representing the American people in a remote corner of the world.

Grubb was assigned to a high-altitude village 60 miles from Bogota where he helped organize the local residents to build schools, roads and other local projects.

"We were community organizers before Barack Obama was born," said Grubb, 69.

Since its founding, more than 200,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps in 139 countries. Though all of the first recruits who trained at Rutgers were male, today about 60 percent of the volunteers are women, Peace Corps officials said.

Rutgers has maintained ties to the Peace Corps. More than 550 Rutgers graduates have served in 108 countries, including 28 graduates currently volunteering overseas. The university also offers a master’s degree in public administration that Peace Corps volunteers can tie into their service, said Linda Bassett, senior director of Rutgers’ Office of Community Affairs.

After his Peace Corps stint, Grubb finished college at Penn State University and went on to a career in international finance consulting. Five decades later, the Washington, D.C., resident is still close to many of the Peace Corps volunteers he trained with at Rutgers. They are all proud of the movement they helped pioneer.

"I do feel a sense of pride because 50 years later, the organization is still around," Grubb said.